Nigeria has called for financing mechanisms that will ensure equitable access to capital for developing countries to enable them meet their development challenges.
President Bola Tinubu made this call at the ongoing Summit of the Non- Aligned Movement countries, held at Kampala, Uganda.
Speaking at the meeting, President Tinubu stated that the combined population of the 120 countries that made up the Non-Aligned Movement was over 4.4 billion or about 55 percent of the world’s population, yet the total financial resources available to all these countries were much less than that of some countries.
According to him, “The total budgetary resources for the 120 countries are less than $3.5 trillion, which is less than the budget of the United States alone.
Whereas the aggregate public debt of less than $6.6 trillion, mostly at higher interest rates and shorter tenor, is about one-sixth of one or a few developed countries.”
The President who is being represented at the meeting by the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, said these startling statistics were clear evidence that the Non-Aligned Countries suffered from lack of access to capital and resources for development.
“More often than not, public debt available to developing countries is far more expensive and not substantial enough to make an impact. Therefore, we wish to advocate a financing mechanism and equitable capital market access that can provide adequate financial resources to the Global South,” he said.
He listed the challenges facing the world currently to include climate change, conflict and wars, terrorism, and widening inequality.
“All these are happening as we are battling to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not possible for any one nation to tackle these multidimensional challenges,” he stated.He stressed that those challenges called for greater collaboration between and among Member-States as they struggled to achieve sustainable development goals.
A statement from the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, quoted the President as saying that the theme of the summit: “Deepening Cooperation for Shared Global Affluence” bore relevance with respect to the current trend of wars, proliferation of small arms and light weapons, threat of use of nuclear weapons and the dangerous polarization between developed countries, similar to the era of cold war.
“In this regard, we must recommit to the foundational principles of Non-Aligned Movement to better assure global peace and security,” the president maintained.
Speaking on climate change, he pointed out that the developing countries were moving forward on the issue with courage and ambition.
In his words “Developing countries have striven in the last two decades under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process to make common but differentiated responsibilities a basic principle of global climate action.”
To move forward decisively, he advised that access to affordable climate finance and technologies were critical.
President Tinubu urged NAM to work in collaboration with the United Nations, to stress the need for the developed countries to provide climate finance of $1 trillion at the earliest, in order to fulfill their promise of $100 billion annual commitment to climate finance to developing countries.
He also lent Nigeria’s voice to NAM Member States’ common position in condemning the current wanton destruction of lives and properties in the State of Palestine, which had assumed a critical dimension.
“Nigeria supports and reiterates the call for an immediate durable and sustained humanitarian truce in that region. Many lives, including women and children, have been lost since the commencement of the crisis between the States of Israel and Palestine with so many displaced.
“The daily increase of displaced persons and shortage of humanitarian supplies due to impeded access have greatly impacted on the people, exacerbated the humanitarian catastrophe in the region and increased civilian casualties.
“As a promoter and protector of human rights, Nigeria urges the parties in the conflict to uphold the fundamental values of international humanitarian law, which places high premium on ensuring civilians’ safety and wellbeing.
“This should go beyond mere politics and rhetorics. Destruction of lives and properties including hospitals, religious and cultural sites are violations of international laws.
“Nigeria therefore calls for a ceasefire and reiterates its call once again for quick de-escalation of hostilities by both sides which should help us in getting to a two-state solution. This seeming permanent cycle of violence needs to be broken,” he underlined.
President Tinubu told the NAM member states that it was their responsibility to build bridges and take urgent practical actions to scale up success and lessons learned.
“We must work together to tackle these challenges by touching the lives of the most vulnerable in society,” he stressed.
The President therefore posited that the pursuit of shared prosperity for all must be at the centre stage of multilateralism.
“Shared prosperity is the ultimate guarantee for peace. Our Countries are looking for equity, not sympathy. It is justice and development that shall make freedom blossom.”
Ugandan President, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, chaired this year’s summit which was well attended by many Presidents and Heads of government.
NAM is the largest gathering of countries, second only to the United Nations General Assembly.
